[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Angua

As long as central government continues to dictate how much money local government can have/raise the system will be unfair, as not only do central government require more to be done locally on the one hand, they also limit how they can pay for it on the other.

We agree on that one...we're in a position right now where Council Tax bills are at the ludicrous rate they are whilst central government is cutting their funding.

Originally Posted by Angua

I do not have the answers but poll tax was too closely related to household members and not income it hit the poorest (non benefit claiming) hardest (I did one weeks work a month just paying poll tax). Council tax is at least slightly fairer as you are likely to live where you can afford, and again this hits households with only one wage earner.

Except that if we maintained the Poll Tax and increased it at the rate of inflation I would expect the total bill for the majority of households to be less that the current figures are with the Council Tax.

However, it wouldn't make any difference which method of collecting local taxes you use as the funding from central government would still have been cut dramatically under this Labour government and the black-hole that is local government would still need to collect their money.

Originally Posted by Angua

At least with local income tax, every tax payer would contribute something rather than the majority paying nothing.

Local income tax wouldn't be any different, except that you would need the Revenue & Customs to collect it, adding huge additional manpower requirements in another poorly functioning central department, you'd need to assign different tax codes for people living in different parts of the country and then you would have to distribute the monies, usually paid in bulk lots by employers on an annual basis, back out to the local authorities.

If going down this route is unlikely to keep the costs down IMHO.

Originally Posted by NEONKNIGHT

Hope everyone knows or indeed remembers that the Tories 'robbed' the local government pension funds to keep the then Community Charge at a lower level. I think Labour have done a good job if the level of Council Tax has only doubled since they came to power - you can't have your cake and eat it, you want decent public services, you pay for it, simple as that.

And Gordon Brown did it to everyone else...nothing much between them really is there? Except that Gordon Brown did whilst raising taxes and watching local authorities reducing public services, as discussed before.